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Tuesday, December 15, 2015

seizures

Last night, Moose had a Grand Mal seizure. I was sitting beside him when it happened (thank You Lord!). Ambulance was called, but we decided to not take him to the hospital. There is not much you can do for a seizure except wait it out unless it lasts so long. Our neurologist said to take him to the ER if they last 8-10 minutes. This was less than 5. However, in all of this and talking to a few people, there have been some misconceptions about Moose's seizures. Big A and I thought we have explained it well, but apparently not. And it's difficult when you're not in the situation yourself to fully understand. So I wanted to lay out a blanket explanation. Now, keep in mind that this is what I know so I may get some thing wrong; I'm not a doctor or nurse or have any medical training beyond CPR (even that's iffy). Most of Moose's seizures have been petit mal seizures. Petit mal: "a mild form of epilepsy characterized by brief spells of unconsciousness without loss of posture." For Moose this looks like staring spells or spelling spells where he has some repetitive movement with his left arm/hand. He's talked during these but also been nonverbal. Moose's first seizure and this one last night were grand mal seizures. Grand mal: "a serious form of epilepsy with muscle spasms and prolonged loss of consciousness." When you think of seizures, this is probably what you think of. Convulsing. Now, I didn't see his first seizure but this one last night started as a petit mal or looked like it, then he moved his head up and to the right, his face kind of scrunched on the right side and he started to convulse. He did so for 2-3 minutes. He would have fallen had I not been beside him when it happened. Maybe this makes no difference to you, but I just wanted to set the record straight. Either way, we sure appreciate your prayers. We have seen God give us small blessings even in the midst of this happening.

Even yesterday, I could have not been sitting right beside him - and he would have fallen. The EMTs arrived so quickly; they had already been at the hospital when they got our call. Squirt was amazingly calm and helpful - getting a pillow for under his head, checking the time. A dear friend of ours was on his way home and saw the ambulance and saw Big A wasn't home yet so he stopped to help; so very very thankful! Big A was on his way home so was there quickly as well. Even just living where we live, the doctor came to our house to check on Moose when we didn't take him to the ER (and the nurse who was with the doctor guessed it was Moose based on our address coming over the scanner) - love small town living. Ignore this weird text spacing. I don't know how to fix that.